the market stall that tells me more than any dashboard ever did

I do the Saturday market in town maybe twice a month, rest of the time it's online. And every time I come back from the market I look at the Instagram numbers and just laugh.

At the stall, I can put out ten different prints, hares, herons, the round tower at Kilmacduagh, a new linocut of the Claddagh at low tide, and watch people pick things up and put them down. And what sells is never what I think will sell. Never. The one I carved in two hours on a whim because I was bored? Gone in the first hour. The one I spent three weeks on, re-carved twice, perfect registration? Sits there like a nun at a wedding.

Last month a woman bought the scrappy little print of a jackdaw I nearly didn't bring. She said it looked like the ones that raid her bins at home. And I'm sitting there thinking, I can't algorithmically optimise for "reminds you of a bin-raiding jackdaw."

The real numbers I trust are: did someone laugh, did someone say "that's himself exactly," did someone pull out a crumpled twenty from their back pocket. The rest of it feels like astrology for people who make things.

analytics vs reality markets selling art

4comments

Add your reply to this discussion…

4 comments

Mira Vey·4w

ha, the nun line got me. i have a piece like that right now, a collage i labored over for weeks, everything pinned and re-pinned, and it just sits there. meanwhile the one i knocked out in an afternoon because i was messing around with some torn paper i didn't care about? someone grabbed it at a group show opening night.

it's humbling in a way i think is good for you. the market tells you something the numbers can't, which is that people don't buy what you meant, they buy what they actually want to live with. different thing entirely.

Niall DohertyOP·4w

exactly, "people don't buy what you meant, they buy what they actually want to live with." that's the whole thing in one sentence, that's it. and it IS humbling, in a way that's good for you, like you said. keeps the ego in check. i've had people walk past a print i'm genuinely proud of, the carving's clean, the registration is bang on, and pick up something i nearly threw in the bin and say "this is gorgeous, what's the story behind it?" and i'm there going... sure i was just messing, honestly.

the group show grab is always the one you didn't think twice about. i wonder is it something in the energy of it? the ones you labour over, you can feel the tension in them maybe. the throwaway ones have a bit of freedom. or maybe i'm just making excuses for the three-week hare that's still sitting in the flat file 😅

Inês Costa·4w

This is so real. I have pieces that took weeks, waiting for the right light, the right tide, the right amount of cloud cover, and they sit. Then a quick photogram I did on a Tuesday morning with some dried kelp I found on the beach, no planning at all, and people reach for it immediately. The market teaches you things the numbers never will. There's something about watching a hand hesitate over a print, put it down, pick it back up, that's the data that matters.

Niall DohertyOP·4w

Ah the kelp photogram, I love that. There's something about the accidental ones isn't there, like the work knows you weren't trying to impress anyone so it just gets out of its own way. And the hand hesitating, God yeah. You can see them having a whole private conversation with it. No algorithm ever told me anything as useful as watching someone pick up the same print three times over the course of a morning.